The flowering of grapes - the third phase of vegetation - begins with the separation of the flower and ...
After the loss has occurred, the psyche must cope with it. The process of these changes is called a reaction to loss or grief. The loss response is complete when a person is able to function adaptively, feel safe, and feel like a self, a person without what they have lost.
Grief is a strong emotion experienced as a result of the loss of a loved one. Loss can be temporary (separation) or permanent (death), real or imagined, physical or psychological. It is also the process by which one works through the pain of loss, regaining a sense of balance and fullness of life. Grief is a process of functional necessity, not weakness. This is the way in which a person recovers from a tangible loss.
Grief is an emotional response to the loss of a person. Often, to describe this state, a person uses the words of regret, heartache. With the loss of a loved one or even a pet, this reaction develops to some extent.
Grief is a strong emotional reaction to loss that manifests itself as emptiness and sadness, and severe depression can develop.
Grief is characterized by the following manifestations.
1. Physical suffering comes to the fore in the form of periodic attacks, a constant need to breathe; loss of appetite, muscle strength. Against the background of these bodily signs, a person experiences mental suffering in the form of emotional stress or mental pain. Changes in the clarity of consciousness are noted: there is a slight feeling of unreality and a feeling of an increase in the emotional distance separating a person from other people.
2. Preoccupation with the image of the lost. Against the background of some unreality, visual, auditory or combined illusions may arise. Such states are distinguished by a special emotional grip, under the influence of which the line between experience and reality can be lost.
3. Guilt. The grieving person tries to find in the events and actions preceding the loss what he did not do for the deceased. The slightest oversights, inattention, omissions, mistakes are exaggerated and contribute to the development of ideas of self-accusation.
4. Hostile reactions. In relations with people, sympathy decreases or disappears, the usual warmth and naturalness of treatment is lost, often a person speaks about what is happening with irritation or anger, expresses a desire not to be disturbed. Hostility sometimes arises spontaneously and is inexplicable to those who mourn.
5. Loss of former, natural patterns of behavior. Haste, fussiness are noted in actions, a person becomes restless or performs chaotic actions in search of some kind of occupation, but turns out to be completely incapable of the simplest organized activity.
6. Identification with loss. In the statements and actions of a person, behavioral traits of the deceased or signs of his last illness appear. As a rule, identification with the loss is the result of preoccupation with the image of the lost.
This is the cross section of the state of grief. In time, he is characterized by dynamics, the passage of a number of stages, when a person, as E. Lindemann wrote, performs the “work of grief”. It requires physical and mental energy: experience includes not only the expression of emotions, but also active actions. The goal of grief work is to get over it, to become independent of the loss, to adapt to the changed life and to find new relationships with people and the world.
Grief reactions are a normal human reaction to any significant loss. Conventionally, “normal” mourning and “pathological” mourning are distinguished.
Stages of "normal" mourning. “Normal” mourning is characterized by the development of experiences in several stages with a complex of symptoms and reactions characteristic of each. Let's dwell on them in more detail.
The picture of acute grief is similar in different people. The normal course of mourning is characterized by periodic attacks of physical suffering, and intense subjective suffering, described as tension or mental pain, absorption in the image of the deceased. The stage of acute grief lasts for about 4 months, conditionally including 4 of the stages described below.
1. Stage of shock. Tragic news causes horror, emotional stupor, detachment from everything that happens, or, conversely, an internal explosion. The world may seem unreal: time in the perception of the grieving may accelerate or stop, space may narrow.
2. The stage of denial (search) is characterized by disbelief in the reality of loss. The person convinces himself and others that "everything will change for the better," that "the doctors were wrong," that "he will be back soon," and so on. What is characteristic here is not the denial of the very fact of the loss, but the denial of the fact of the permanence of the loss.
3. The stage of aggression, which is expressed in the form of indignation, aggressiveness and hostility towards others, blaming the death of a loved one on oneself, relatives or friends, the treating doctor, etc. When anger finds its way out and the intensity of emotions decreases, the next stage begins.
4. The stage of depression (suffering, disorganization) - longing, loneliness, withdrawal into oneself and deep immersion in the truth of loss. It is at this stage that much of the work of grief takes place. This is the period of greatest suffering, acute mental pain. Unusual preoccupation with the image of the deceased and his idealization are typical.
The previous stages were associated with resistance to death, and the emotions that accompanied them were mostly destructive.
Acceptance stage. In literary sources, this stage is divided into two,:
1. Stage of residual shocks and reorganization. At this phase, life gets back on its track, sleep, appetite, professional activity are restored, the deceased ceases to be the main focus of life.
This stage, as a rule, lasts for a year: during this time, almost all ordinary life events occur and then begin to repeat themselves. The death anniversary is the last date in this series. Maybe that's why most cultures and religions set aside one year for mourning.
2. Stage of "completion". The normal grief experience we are describing enters its final phase about a year later. Here, the mourner sometimes has to overcome some cultural barriers that hinder the act of completion.
The meaning and task of the work of grief in this phase is to ensure that the image of the deceased takes its permanent place in the family and personal history, family and personal memory of the grieving person, as a bright image that causes only light sadness.
One of the biggest obstacles to the normal functioning of grief is the often unconscious desire of mourners to avoid the intense suffering associated with grief and to avoid expressing the emotions associated with it. In these cases, there is a “stuck” at any of the stages and the appearance of painful reactions of grief is possible.
Painful grief reactions. Painful grief reactions are distortions of the "normal" mourning process.
Delayed response. If a bereavement catches a person at the time of solving some very important problems, or if it is necessary for the moral support of others, he may hardly or not at all reveal his grief for a week or even much longer. In extreme cases, this delay can last for years, as evidenced by cases where people who have recently suffered a bereavement are gripped by grief for people who died many years ago.
Distorted reactions. May appear as superficial manifestations of unresolved grief. The following types of such reactions are distinguished:
1. Increased activity without a sense of loss may manifest itself in a tendency to engage in activities close to what the deceased did at one time.
2. The appearance of the grieving symptoms of the last disease of the deceased.
3. Psychosomatic conditions, which primarily include ulcerative colitis, rheumatoid arthritis and asthma.
4. Social isolation, pathological avoidance of communication with friends and relatives.
5. Violent hostility against certain persons, with a sharp expression of their feelings.
6. Hidden hostility. Feelings become, as it were, "hardened", and behavior becomes formal.
7. Loss of forms of social activity. A person cannot decide on any activity. Only ordinary everyday things are done, and they are performed in a pattern.
8. Social activity to the detriment of their own economic and social status.
9. Agitated depression with tension, agitation, insomnia, feelings of worthlessness, harsh self-accusations and a clear need for punishment.
Flowing into each other on the rise, these distorted reactions significantly delay and aggravate the mourning and the subsequent “recovery” of the mourner.
The tasks of the work of grief. Passing through certain stages of experience, mourning performs a number of tasks (according to G. Whited):
1. Accept the reality of loss with your mind and feelings.
2. Experience the pain of loss.
3. Create a new identity, that is, find your place in a world that already has losses.
4. Transfer energy from loss to other aspects of life.
The emotional experience of a person changes and enriches in the course of personality development as a result of experiencing crisis life periods, empathy with the mental states of other people. Particularly in this series are the experiences of the death of a loved one.
Conclusions for chapter 1:
1. Difficult life situations arise either in case of imbalance in the system of relations between the individual and his environment; or discrepancies between goals, aspirations and opportunities for their implementation and personality traits. Difficult life situations are classified: 1) by intensity, 2) by the magnitude of the loss or threat, 3) by duration (chronic, short-term), 4) by the degree of controllability of events (controlled, uncontrolled), 5) by the level of influence.
A critical life situation is a crisis. This is a state generated by a problem that has arisen before a person, from which he cannot escape and which he cannot resolve in a quick time and in the usual way. The collision of a person with an insurmountable barrier - the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the loss of health, creates a crisis. The process of overcoming this crisis is experiencing. The most serious shock in the life of every person is the experience of the loss of a loved one.
2. Psychological research on the loss of a loved one is mostly done abroad. The main feature of Western American) researchers is a practical focus on adapting a person to a situation and therefore a behavioral approach. The developments of domestic psychology are mostly devoted to urgent short-term psychological assistance in extreme situations. Loss is an experience associated with the impact of super-strong psychic trauma. The loss can be temporary (separation) or permanent (death); real or imagined; physical, psychological or social (loss of work or school).
3. The experience of loss is considered at two levels: event-reflexive and spiritual-reflexive. The following conditions influence the experience of loss: 1) the nature of the loss situation; 2) perception of the loss situation; 3) features of the lost loved one; 4) sociocultural space; 5) individual psychological characteristics of the bereaved.
4. It is necessary to consider the experience of the loss of a loved one as a systemic multilevel experience that has general psychological patterns that are invariant with respect to the situation of loss, the gender and age of the bereaved, and the type of the lost. On this basis, it is possible to predict the subsequent stages of the process of experiencing loss and clearly formulate specific steps in providing practical psychological assistance.
5. Grief is a strong emotional reaction to loss, which manifests itself in the form of emptiness and sadness, and severe depression can develop. Conventionally, “normal” mourning and “pathological” mourning are distinguished. The following phases of grief are distinguished: the stage of shock, the stage of denial, the stage of aggression, the stage of depression, the stage of acceptance of what happened. Painful reactions of grief include: delay of reaction, distortion of reactions.
The most popular modern systems of psychotherapy are known to be based on early trauma. Often, all subsequent personality formation results from the influence of psychogeny experienced in the early stages of development. These therapeutic schools provide diagnosis and treatment of early psychic trauma. Such an injury can be very diverse. And for psychotherapy, it is not its objective severity that is especially important, but the subjective severity of a person's experiences. However, we experience mental trauma throughout our lives. And the very fact of the end of our life is a trauma for our relatives and friends.
The death of a loved one is the most difficult, hard to replace loss. There are other losses that bring pain and suffering: divorce, job loss, restrictions related to age, health, severe material damage, change of residence. Finally, the loss of a beloved animal. Of course, they are different in nature, but they evoke similar feelings of loss, grief and loss.
The living of grief, the "work of grief" is a long process. However, it has some definite patterns. Here are five typical stages of grief experience.
Stages of grief:
1.Shock and numbness
2. Denial and suspension.
3. Recognition and pain
4. Acceptance and revival.
5. Life after the end of the grief experience.
These are the classic stages of grief that are used in psychotherapeutic work in many schools of psychotherapy.
Types of grief.
A) - temporary (separation)
Permanent (death)
B) - real
imaginary
The reaction of loss proceeds at its own speed, this process cannot be accelerated. The mourning process can last from two months to two years normally. The grief of parents who have lost children can last 4-5 years.
Physical manifestations of the loss reaction:
Emotional shock, even if it is an expected death. Intestinal disorders: nausea, stomach pain, feelings of tension, constriction, flatulence. Tension in neck, spine, throat. Increased sensitivity to noise. Feeling the unreality of what is happening. Shortness of breath, suffocation, desire to breathe frequently, accompanied by fear of suffocation (hyperventilation). Muscle weakness, lack of energy, general weakness. Dry mouth. Headache, heart pain, increased blood pressure, tachycardia. Sleep disturbance. Appetite disturbance (refusal of food or overeating). Other physical manifestations.
Such symptoms can be observed within two to three weeks.
Emotional manifestations of the reaction of loss:
Sadness, tears. motor reactions. Irritation, anger, auto-aggression (that is, aggression on oneself). Aggression in particular can be expressed in the accusations of doctors, relatives, funeral directors and other people. Feelings of guilt and self-blame. Anxiety, restlessness. For example, a person can feel various fears, feelings of fragility of himself and the world, a threat. Experience of loneliness, especially if communication was frequent. Feeling like the world has collapsed. To the point of leaving the house. Feeling of helplessness. Yearning. Tiredness and weariness, apathy or insensibility. Shock. Numbness in the shock phase. If the feelings for the lost person were contradictory (ambivalent), then there may be a feeling of liberation.
Intellectual Violations:
Thoughts are scattered. He does not believe in what happened, it's just a dream. Confusion of thoughts and forgetfulness. Intrusive thoughts in my head. For example, about the circumstances of death, about what could be changed or somehow returned. Feeling the presence of the deceased. It seems to a person that he sees the deceased, hallucinations. Dreams about the dead.
Behavioral changes:
Irresponsible actions. For example, he automatically bought something that the deceased liked to eat. Social avoidance shortly after loss. This is a normal reaction even for people leading an active lifestyle. But if this does not go away for several months, then we can talk about depression. Protecting the belongings of the deceased. When a person internally moves away, he avoids these things. Avoiding anything that reminds you of the deceased. Search and call to the deceased. Activity is tireless, a person is doing something and cannot stop. Frequent visits to memorial sites, taking care of the grave.
critical periods.
1) The first 48 hours after the loss: shock stage, denial, fear of losing other family members, fear of losing yourself in a physical and psychological sense.
2) 1st week after loss: funeral arrangements, maybe first exhaustion, first suicidal attempts.
3) 2nd - 5th weeks: depressive stage, apathy, loss of strength, confusion, feeling of abandonment, lack of prospects. During this period, a person can already return to their usual activities (continue their studies, return to work).
4) 6th - 12th weeks: awareness of the reality of the loss, by this time the shock reactions should have passed. Typical manifestations are sleep disturbance, fears, bouts of crying, physical fatigue, emotional lability, cognitive decline (difficulty concentrating), changes in sexual activity, desire for solitude or an overwhelming desire to talk about the deceased. If during this period the denial of the fact of loss continues, the development of pathological grief is possible.
5) 3rd - 4th month: change of "good" and "bad" days (periods of irritation are replaced by a feeling of calm), sensitivity to various kinds of frustrations, outbursts of anger are possible, the development of immunosuppression (somatic complaints, exacerbation of chronic diseases).
Stages 1 to 5 are acute grief. The features of the flow of these stages depend on the personal characteristics of the grieving person, age, characteristics of the living environment, etc.
Normal reactions during this period are: physical suffering, preoccupation with the image of the deceased, guilt, hostile reactions towards others (or avoidance of contact), loss of habitual patterns of behavior (inability to purposeful activity).
6) 6th month: the severity of what happened (normal) is experienced, during this period holidays, anniversaries exacerbate depressive disorders.
7) 1 year: first anniversary.
8) From 18 to 24 months: a period of adaptation, building a new life without a loved one.
If acute grief reactions persist after 6 months, such as severe depression, psychosomatic disorders, hypochondriacal symptoms associated with the deceased, hyperactivity instead of mourning, increased hostility towards others, a complete change in lifestyle, suicidal thoughts, apathy, inactivity, then we can talk about the presence of pathological grief.
Statistics.
Only 7% of grieving people need psychotherapeutic help (people who have experienced multiple losses, are prone to self-destructive behavior, prone to depressive states, emotionally labile).
30% of grieving people need psychological counseling.
1% - in drug treatment.
Conditions requiring the help of psychotherapy.
Signs of depression (apathy, loss of interest in what is happening, etc.)
A life based solely on memories
Sleep disturbance (restless sleep, insomnia, frequent awakenings, etc.)
Malnutrition (lack of appetite or overeating)
Sense of anxiety
Feelings of longing, thoughts of suicide
(If at least three signs are observed - a depressive disorder requiring therapy).
pathological grief.
Prolonged grief experience
Delayed or suppressed grief reactions
Exaggerated grief reactions (panic attacks, fear of death)
Disguised grief reaction (a person experiences certain experiences, but does not associate them with the event: behavioral problems, psychosomatics, a series of small failures and losses)
Lazarus identifies the following signs of pathological grief:
A person cannot talk about the deceased, while there is no reaction of grief and the person died a long time ago
Experiences in similar events
Man talks about fatalism, fate, death
Keeping things of the deceased (fetishism)
Similarity of somatic symptoms to those of the deceased
Imitation of the deceased in something
Use of alcohol, drugs, tranquilizers, drug dependence
Seasonal mood disorders, provided that they appeared only after the injury
ACUTE LOSS OR GRIEF REACTION
TYPICAL COMPLAINTS
Acute grief is a normal and understandable reaction to the loss of a loved one. Patient
Depressed by the loss;
Fixed on the loss of a loved one;
Bouts of tearfulness are expressed;
Somatic complaints may dominate.
Grief can be experienced both at the loss of a loved one, and at other significant losses (eg work, habitual lifestyle, breakup of relationships). The reaction may provoke or exacerbate other psychopathological disorders, may be complicated, delayed or incomplete, and lead to long-term mental and physical health problems.
DIAGNOSTIC SIGNS
Normal grief includes feelings of loss but is accompanied by depression-like symptoms, including:
Depressed mood;
Loss of former interests;
Feelings of guilt towards the deceased;
periods of anxiety;
Tearfulness;
Desire to join the deceased;
Restriction of contacts and social activity;
Difficulties in planning for the future;
Sleep disturbances (more often in the form of sleep disturbances and nocturnal awakenings);
Deceptions of perception are possible, more often in a sleepy state, (for example, the voice of the deceased).
The pathological grief reaction includes the following symptoms:
Feeling of longing for the deceased;
Search for the deceased;
Constant thoughts of loss;
Disbelief in the death of a loved one;
No recognition of loss.
DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS
The experience of grief is a mental process with the necessary solution of the following tasks:
Recognition of the reality of loss;
Awareness of loss;
Adaptation to life without a deceased person;
Consider a diagnosis of depression if.
The experience of grief is perhaps one of the most mysterious manifestations of spiritual life.
How miraculously will a person devastated by loss manage to be reborn and fill his world with meaning? How can he, confident that he has forever lost the joy and desire to live, be able to restore peace of mind, feel the colors and taste of life? How is suffering melted into wisdom?
All these are not rhetorical figures of admiration for the strength of the human spirit, but pressing questions, to know the specific answers to which it is necessary, if only because sooner or later we all have to, whether by professional or human duty, console and support grieving people.
Can psychology help in finding these answers? In domestic psychology - do not believe it! – there is not a single original work on the experience and psychotherapy of grief.
As far as Western studies are concerned, hundreds of papers describe the smallest details of the branching tree of this topic - grief pathological and "good", "delayed" and "anticipatory", the technique of professional psychotherapy and mutual assistance of elderly widowers, grief syndrome from sudden infant death and the impact of videos about death on children in grief, etc., etc.
However, when behind all this variety of details you try to discern an explanation of the general meaning and direction of the processes of grief, then almost everywhere the familiar features of Z. Freud's scheme, given back in "Sadness and Melancholy" (See: Freud Z. Sadness and Melancholy // Psychology of Emotions) Moscow, 1984, pp. 203-211).
It is unsophisticated: the "work of sorrow" consists in tearing off psychic energy from a beloved, but now lost object. Until the end of this work, "the object continues to exist mentally," and after its completion, the "I" becomes free from attachment and can direct the released energy to other objects.
"Out of sight - out of mind" - such, following the logic of the scheme, would be an ideal grief according to Freud. Freud's theory explains how people forget the departed, but it does not even raise the question of how they remember them. We can say that this is the theory of oblivion. Its essence remains unchanged in modern concepts.
Among the formulations of the main tasks of the work of grief, one can find such as "accepting the reality of loss", "feeling pain", "re-adjusting to reality", "reclaiming emotional energy and investing it in other relationships", but it is vain to look for the task of remembrance and remembrance.
Namely, this task is the innermost essence of human grief. Grief is not just one of the feelings, it is a constitutive anthropological phenomenon: not a single most intelligent animal buries its fellows. To bury is, therefore, to be a man. But to bury is not to discard, but to hide and preserve.
And on the psychological level, the main acts of the mystery of grief are not the separation of energy from the lost object, but the arrangement of the image of this object for storage in memory. Human grief is not destructive (to forget, tear off, separate), but constructive, it is designed not to scatter, but to collect, not to destroy, but to create - to create memory.
Based on this, the main goal of this essay is to try to change the paradigm of "forgetting" to the paradigm of "remembering" and in this new perspective to consider all the key phenomena of the process of grief experience.
The initial phase of grief is shock and numbness. "Can not be!" - this is the first reaction to the news of death. The characteristic state can last from a few seconds to several weeks, on average, by the 7-9th day, gradually changing to another picture.
Numbness is the most noticeable feature of this condition. The mourner is constrained, tense. His breathing is difficult, irregular, a frequent desire to take a deep breath leads to intermittent, convulsive (like steps) incomplete inspiration. Loss of appetite and sexual desire are common. Often occurring muscle weakness, inactivity are sometimes replaced by minutes of fussy activity.
A feeling of unreality of what is happening, spiritual numbness, insensitivity, stunnedness appear in the human mind. The perception of external reality is dulled, and then in the future there are often gaps in the memories of this period.
A. Tsvetaeva, a man of brilliant memory, could not restore the picture of her mother’s funeral: “I don’t remember how they carry, lower the coffin. How they throw clods of earth, fill up the grave, how the priest serves the memorial service. Something erased all this from memory ... Fatigue and drowsiness of the soul. After my mother's funeral in memory - a failure "(Tsvetaeva L. Memoirs. M., 1971. P. 248).
The first strong feeling that breaks through the veil of numbness and deceptive indifference is often anger. It is unexpected, incomprehensible to the person himself, he is afraid that he will not be able to contain it.
How to explain all these phenomena? Usually, the shock reaction complex is interpreted as a defensive denial of the fact or meaning of death, preventing the mourner from facing the loss in its entirety at once.
If this explanation were correct, consciousness, seeking to distract, turn away from what happened, would be completely absorbed in current external events, involved in the present, at least in those aspects of it that do not directly remind of the loss.
However, we see the exact opposite picture: a person is psychologically absent from the present, he does not hear, does not feel, does not turn on the present, it seems to pass him by, while he himself is somewhere in another space and time. We are not dealing with the denial of the fact that "he (the deceased) is not here", but with the denial of the fact that "I (the mourner) am here".
A tragic event that has not happened is not admitted into the present, and it itself does not allow the present into the past. This event, without becoming psychologically real at any moment, breaks the connection of times, divides life into unconnected "before" and "after". The shock leaves the person in this "before", where the deceased was still alive, was still nearby.
The psychological, subjective sense of reality, the sense of "here-and-now" gets stuck in this "before", the objective past, and the present with all its events passes by without being recognized by consciousness as its reality. If it were given to a person to clearly realize what is happening to him in this period of stupor, he could say to those who sympathize with him that the deceased is not with him: "I am not with you, I am there, more precisely, here, with him."
Such an interpretation makes clear the mechanism and meaning of the emergence of both derealization sensations and mental anesthesia: will terrible events subjectively occur; and post-shock amnesia: I can't remember things I didn't participate in; and loss of appetite and decreased libido, those vital forms of interest in the outside world; and anger.
Anger is a specific emotional reaction to an obstacle, an obstacle in satisfying a need. The whole of reality turns out to be such an obstacle to the unconscious desire of the soul to stay with the beloved: after all, any person, a phone call, household duties require concentration on oneself, make the soul turn away from the beloved, get out of the state of illusory connection with him even for a minute.
What theory supposedly infers from a multitude of facts, pathology sometimes visibly shows in one striking example. P. Janet described a clinical case of a girl who took care of her sick mother for a long time, and after her death she fell into a painful state: she could not remember what had happened, she did not answer the doctors' questions, but only mechanically repeated movements in which one could see the reproduction of actions , which became familiar to her during the care of the dying.
The girl did not experience grief, because she lived completely in the past, where her mother was still alive. Only when this pathological reproduction of the past with the help of automatic movements (memory-habit, according to Jean) was replaced by the opportunity to arbitrarily recall and tell about the death of her mother (memory-story), the girl began to cry and felt the pain of loss.
This case allows us to call the psychological time of shock "the present in the past." Here the hedonistic principle of the avoidance of suffering reigns supreme over soul life. And from here, the process of grief still has a long way to go until a person can strengthen himself in the "present" and remember the past without pain.
The next step on this path - the search phase - differs, according to S. Parkes, who singled it out, by an unrealistic desire to return the lost and by denying not so much the fact of death as the permanence of loss. It is difficult to indicate the time limits of this period, since it rather gradually replaces the previous phase of shock and then the phenomena characteristic of it occur for a long time in the subsequent phase of acute grief, but on average the peak of the search phase falls on the 5-12th day after the news of death.
At this time, it can be difficult for a person to keep his attention in the outside world, reality is, as it were, covered with a transparent muslin, a veil, through which the sensations of the presence of the deceased break through quite often: a knock on the door - a thought flashes: this is he; his voice - you turn around - strange faces; suddenly on the street: he is the one entering the telephone booth. Such visions, woven into the context of external impressions, are quite common and natural, but frightening, taking them as signs of impending madness.
Sometimes such an appearance of the deceased in the current present occurs in less abrupt forms. P., a 45-year-old man who lost his beloved brother and daughter during the Armenian earthquake, on the 29th day after the tragedy, telling me about his brother, spoke in the past tense with obvious signs of suffering, but when it came to his daughter, he smiled and with a gleam in his eyes he admired how well she studies (and not "studied"), how she is praised, what an assistant to her mother. In this case of double grief, the experience of one loss was already at the stage of acute grief, and the other was delayed at the stage of "search".
The existence of the deceased in the mind of the mourner differs in this period from that which pathologically acute cases of shock reveal to us: shock is unrealistic, search is unrealistic: there is one being - before death, in which the hedonistic principle reigns supreme over the soul, here - "as it were, a double being "("I live, as it were, on two planes," says the mourner), where behind the fabric of reality, another existence is constantly felt latently, breaking through islands of "meetings" with the deceased.
Hope, which constantly gives rise to faith in a miracle, coexists in a strange way with a realistic attitude, which habitually guides all the external behavior of the mourner. Weakened sensitivity to contradiction allows consciousness to live for some time according to two laws that do not interfere in each other's affairs - in relation to external reality according to the principle of reality, and in relation to loss - according to the principle of "pleasure".
They coexist on the same territory: in a series of realistic perceptions, thoughts, intentions (“I’ll call her now”), images of an objectively lost, but subjectively living being, become, become as if they are from this series, and for a second they manage to deceive the realistic installation, accepting them as "their own". These moments and this mechanism constitute the specifics of the "search" phase.
Then comes the third phase - acute grief, lasting up to 6-7 weeks from the moment of the tragic event. Otherwise, it is called a period of despair, suffering and disorganization and - not very accurately - a period of reactive depression.
Preserved, and at first may even intensify, various bodily reactions - difficult shortened breathing: asthenia: muscle weakness, loss of energy, a feeling of heaviness of any action; feeling of emptiness in the stomach, tightness in the chest, lump in the throat: increased sensitivity to odors; decreased or unusual increase in appetite, sexual dysfunction, sleep disturbances.
This is the period of greatest suffering, acute mental pain. There are many heavy, sometimes strange and frightening feelings and thoughts. These are feelings of emptiness and meaninglessness, despair, a feeling of abandonment, loneliness, anger, guilt, fear and anxiety, helplessness.
Typical is an extraordinary preoccupation with the image of the deceased (according to one patient, he remembered the deceased son up to 800 times a day) and his idealization - emphasizing extraordinary virtues, avoiding memories of bad features and deeds. Grief leaves its mark on relationships with others. Here there may be a loss of warmth, irritability, a desire to retire. Daily activities change.
It can be difficult for a person to concentrate on what he is doing, it is difficult to bring the matter to the end, and a complexly organized activity may become completely inaccessible for some time. Sometimes there is an unconscious identification with the deceased, manifested in involuntary imitation of his gait, gestures, facial expressions.
The loss of a loved one is the most difficult event that affects all aspects of life, all levels of the physical, mental and social existence of a person. Grief is unique, it depends on a one-of-a-kind relationship with him, on the specific circumstances of life and death, on the whole unique picture of mutual plans and hopes, insults and joys, deeds and memories.
And yet, behind all this variety of typical and unique feelings and states, one can try to isolate a specific set of processes that constitutes the core of acute grief. Only knowing it, one can hope to find the key to explaining the unusually variegated picture of the various manifestations of both normal and pathological grief.
Let us turn again to Z. Freud's attempt to explain the mechanisms of sadness. "... The beloved object no longer exists, and reality prompts the demand to take away all the libido associated with this object ... But its demand cannot be immediately fulfilled. It is carried out partially, with a great waste of time and energy, and before that the lost object continues to exist mentally.Each of the memories and expectations in which the libido was associated with the object is suspended, takes on an active force, and the release of the libido takes place on it.It is very difficult to point out and justify economically why this compromise work of demanding reality, carried out on all these separate memories and expectations, is accompanied by such exceptional mental pain "(Freud Z. Sadness and melancholy // Psychology of emotions. S. 205.).
So, Freud stopped before explaining the phenomenon of pain, and as for the most hypothetical mechanism of the work of sadness, he pointed not to the method of its implementation, but to the "material" on which the work is carried out - these are "memories and expectations" that "suspend and "acquire an increased active force".
Trusting Freud's intuition that it is here that the holy of holies of grief, it is here that the main sacrament of the work of sorrow is performed, it is worth peering carefully into the microstructure of one attack of acute grief.
This opportunity provides us with the subtlest observation of Anne Philip, the wife of the deceased French actor Gerard Philip: “The morning starts well. I learned to lead a double life. your face, a little blurry, like a photograph taken out of focus. And it's moments like this that I let my guard down: my pain is quiet, like a well-trained horse, and I let go of the bridle. A moment - and I'm trapped. You are here. I I hear your voice, feel your hand on my shoulder or hear your footsteps at the door I lose control of myself I can only shrink inwardly and wait for this to pass not here, you are there, in icy nothingness. What happened? What sound, smell, what mysterious association of thought brought you to me? I want to get rid of you. although I understand perfectly well that this is the most terrible, but at this very moment I lack forces allowed let you take possession of me. You or me The silence of the room cries out louder than the most desperate cry. Chaos in the head, the body is limp. I see us in our past, but where and when? My double separates from me and repeats everything that I did then "(Philip A. One moment. M., 1966. S. 26-27).
If we try to give an extremely brief interpretation of the internal logic of this act of acute grief, then we can say that the processes that make it up begin with an attempt to prevent the two currents flowing in the soul from coming into contact - the life of the present and the past: they go through an involuntary obsession with the past: then through the struggle and pain of the voluntary separation from the image of a loved one, and ends with the "coordination of times" with the opportunity, standing on the shore of the present, to peer into the notes of the past, without slipping there, observing oneself there from the side and therefore no longer experiencing pain.
It is remarkable that the omitted fragments describe the processes already familiar to us from the previous phases of grief, which were dominant there, and now are included in the integral act as subordinate functional parts of this act. The fragment is a typical example of the “search” phase: the focus of arbitrary perception is kept on real deeds and things, but the deep, still full of life stream of the past introduces the face of a dead person into the realm of representations.
It is seen vaguely, but soon attention is involuntarily attracted to it, it becomes difficult to resist the temptation to look directly at the beloved face, and already, on the contrary, the external reality begins to double [note 1], and the consciousness is completely in the force field of the image of the departed, in a mentally full being with its own space and objects (“you are here”), sensations and feelings (“I hear”, “feel”).
The fragments represent the processes of the shock phase, but, of course, not in that pure form, when they are the only ones and determine the entire state of a person. To say and feel "I am losing power over myself" means to feel how my strength is weakening, but still - and this is the main thing - do not fall into absolute immersion, obsession with the past: this is a powerless reflection, there is still no "power over myself", there is not enough will to control oneself, but there are already forces to at least "inwardly shrink and wait", that is, to hold on to the edge of consciousness in the present and realize that "this will pass."
To "shrink" is to keep oneself from acting within an imaginary, but apparently so real, reality. If you do not "shrink", a condition may occur, like the girl P. Janet. The state of "numbness" is a desperate holding oneself here, with only muscles and thoughts, because feelings are there, for them there - here.
It is here, at this step of acute grief, that separation begins, separation from the image of a loved one, a shaky support in the "here and now" is being prepared, which will allow you to say at the next step: "you are not here, you are there ...".
It is at this point that an acute mental pain appears, before explaining which Freud stopped. Paradoxically, pain is caused by the grieving person himself: phenomenologically, in a fit of acute grief, it is not the deceased who leaves us, but we ourselves leave him, break away from him or push him away from us.
And this self-made separation, this own departure, this exile of a loved one: "Go away, I want to get rid of you ..." and watching how his image really moves away, transforms and disappears, and causes, in fact, spiritual pain [note 2].
But here is what is most important in the performed act of acute grief: not the very fact of this painful separation, but its product. At this moment, not only does the separation, rupture and destruction of the old connection take place, as all modern theories believe, but a new connection is born. The pain of acute grief is not only the pain of decay, destruction and death, but also the pain of the birth of a new one. What exactly? Two new selves and a new connection between them, two new times, even worlds, and an agreement between them.
"I see us in the past..." - notes A. Philip. This is the new "me". The former could either be distracted from the loss - "think, speak, work", or be completely absorbed by "you". The new "I" is able to see not "you" when this vision is experienced as a vision in psychological time, which we called "present in the past", but to see "us in the past".
"Us" - therefore, his and himself, from the outside, so to speak, in the grammatically third person. "My double separates from me and repeats everything that I did then." The former "I" was divided into an observer and an acting double, into an author and a hero. At this moment, for the first time during the experience of loss, a piece of real memory of the deceased appears, about life with him as about the past.
This first, just born memory is still very similar to perception ("I see us"), but it already has the main thing - the separation and coordination of times ("I see us in the past"), when the "I" fully feels itself in present and pictures of the past are perceived precisely as pictures of what has already happened, marked with one or another date.
The former bifurcated being is united here by memory, the connection of times is restored, and pain disappears. It is not painful to observe a double acting in the past from the present [note 3].
It was not by chance that we called the figures that appeared in the mind "author" and "hero". Here the birth of the primary aesthetic phenomenon really takes place, the appearance of the author and the hero, the ability of a person to look at the lived, already accomplished life with an aesthetic attitude.
This is an extremely important point in the productive experience of grief. Our perception of another person, especially a close one, with whom we have been connected by many life ties, is thoroughly permeated with pragmatic and ethical relations; his image is saturated with unfinished joint affairs, unfulfilled hopes, unfulfilled desires, unfulfilled plans, unforgiven insults, unfulfilled promises.
Many of them are almost obsolete, others are in full swing, others have been postponed to an indefinite future, but they are all not finished, they are all like questions asked, waiting for some answers, requiring some action. Each of these relationships is charged with a goal, the final unattainability of which is now felt especially sharply and painfully.
The aesthetic attitude, on the other hand, is capable of seeing the world without decomposing it into ends and means, outside and without ends, without the need for my intervention. When I admire a sunset, I don’t want to change anything in it, I don’t compare it with what it should be, I don’t strive to achieve anything.
Therefore, when, in an act of acute grief, a person first manages to completely immerse himself in a part of his former life with the deceased, and then exit it, separating in himself the “hero” who remains in the past, and the “author”, who aesthetically observes the life of the hero from the present, then this particle turns out to be won back from pain, purpose, duty and time for memory.
In the phase of acute grief, the mourner discovers that thousands and thousands of little things are connected in his life with the deceased (“he bought this book”, “he liked this view from the window”, “we watched this movie together”) and each of them captivates his consciousness into "there-and-then", into the depths of the flow of the past, and he has to go through pain to return to the surface. The pain goes away if he manages to take out a grain of sand, a pebble, a shell of memory from the depths and examine them in the light of the present, in the here-and-now. The psychological time of immersion, "the present in the past," he needs to transform into the "past in the present."
In a period of acute grief, his experience becomes the leading activity of a person. Recall that the leading activity in psychology is the activity that occupies a dominant position in a person’s life and through which his personal development is carried out.
For example, a preschooler both works, helping his mother, and learns, memorizing letters, but not work and study, but play is his leading activity, in it and through it he can do more, learn better. It is the sphere of his personal growth.
For the mourner, grief during this period becomes the leading activity in both senses: it constitutes the main content of all his activity and becomes the sphere of development of his personality. Therefore, the phase of acute grief can be considered critical in relation to the further experience of grief, and sometimes it acquires special significance for the entire life path.
The fourth phase of grief is called the phase of "residual shocks and reorganization" (J. Teitelbaum). At this phase, life gets back on its track, sleep, appetite, professional activity are restored, the deceased ceases to be the main focus of life. The experience of grief is no longer a leading activity, it proceeds in the form of frequent at first, and then more and more rare separate shocks, such as occur after the main earthquake.
Such residual grief attacks can be as acute as in the previous phase, and subjectively perceived as even more acute against the background of normal existence. The reason for them is most often some dates, traditional events ("New Year for the first time without him", "spring for the first time without him", "birthday") or events of everyday life ("offended, no one to complain", "in his name the mail has arrived").
The fourth phase, as a rule, lasts for a year: during this time, almost all ordinary life events occur and begin to repeat themselves in the future. The death anniversary is the last date in this series. Perhaps it is no coincidence that most cultures and religions set aside one year for mourning.
During this period, the loss gradually enters into life. A person has to solve many new tasks related to material and social changes, and these practical tasks are intertwined with the experience itself. He very often compares his actions with the moral standards of the deceased, with his expectations, with "what he would say."
The mother believes that she has no right to take care of her appearance, as before, before the death of her daughter, since the deceased daughter cannot do the same. But gradually more and more memories appear, freed from pain, guilt, resentment, abandonment. Some of these memories become especially valuable, dear, they are sometimes woven into whole stories that are exchanged with relatives, friends, often included in the family "mythology".
In a word, the material of the image of the deceased released by acts of grief undergoes a kind of aesthetic processing here. In my attitude towards the deceased, wrote M. M. Bakhtin, “aesthetic moments begin to prevail ... (compared to moral and practical ones): I have before me the whole of his life, freed from the moments of the temporal future, goals and obligations. The burial and the monument are followed by memory.
I have the whole life of another outside of myself, and here the aestheticization of his personality begins: fixing and completing it in an aesthetically significant image. From the emotional-volitional setting of commemoration of the departed, the aesthetic categories of shaping the inner person (and the external one) are essentially born, because only this setting in relation to the other has a value approach to the temporary and already completed whole of the external and internal life of a person ...
Memory is the approach of the point of view of value completeness; in a certain sense, memory is hopeless, but only it can appreciate, in addition to purpose and meaning, an already completed, completely present life "(Bakhtin M.M. Aesthetics of verbal creativity. P. 94-95).
The normal experience of grief that we are describing enters its last phase, the “completion,” about a year later. Here, the mourner sometimes has to overcome some cultural barriers that make the act of completion difficult (for example, the notion that the duration of grief is a measure of our love for the deceased).
The meaning and task of the work of grief in this phase is to ensure that the image of the deceased takes its permanent place in the ongoing semantic whole of my life (it can, for example, become a symbol of kindness) and be fixed in the timeless, value dimension of being.
Let me conclude with an episode from psychotherapeutic practice. I once had to work with a young painter who lost his daughter during the Armenian earthquake. When our conversation was coming to an end, I asked him to close his eyes, imagine an easel with a white sheet of paper in front of him and wait until some image appeared on it.
The image of a house and a gravestone with a lit candle arose. Together we begin to complete the mental picture, and mountains, blue skies and bright sun appeared behind the house. I ask you to focus on the sun, to consider how its rays fall. And so, in the picture evoked by the imagination, one of the rays of the sun is combined with the flame of a funeral candle: the symbol of the dead daughter is combined with the symbol of eternity. Now we need to find a way to get rid of these images.
The frame in which the father mentally places the image serves as such a means. The frame is wooden. The living image finally becomes a picture of memory, and I ask my father to squeeze this imaginary picture with his hands, appropriate it, absorb it into himself and place it in his heart. The image of the dead daughter becomes a memory - the only way to reconcile the past with the present.
2.2. Psychological help at different stages of experiencing loss
Let's move on to considering the specifics of psychological assistance to a grieving person at each of the indicative stages of experiencing loss.
1. Stage of shock and denial. During the period of the first reactions to loss, a psychologist or someone who is close to a person who has lost their loved one has a triple task: (1) first of all, get the person out of the state of shock, (2) then help him recognize the fact of the loss when he ready for this, and (3) plus, try to awaken feelings, and thereby start the work of grief.
To bring a person out of shock, it is necessary to restore his contact with reality, for which the following actions can be taken:
Calling by name, simple questions and requests to the bereaved;
Use of eye-catching, meaningful visual impressions, such as objects associated with the deceased;
Tactile contact with the grieving.
A person who has lost his loved one will be able to quickly come to the recognition of the loss if the interlocutor recognizes the misfortune that has occurred with all his actions and words. It will be easier for him to admit into consciousness and outwardly manifest the whole complex of feelings associated with the death of a loved one, if the person next to him facilitates and stimulates this process, creates favorable conditions. What can be done for this?
To be open in relation to the grieving person and all his possible experiences, paying attention to their slightest signs and manifestations.
Openly express your feelings towards him and about the loss.
Talk about emotionally significant moments of what happened, thereby affecting hidden feelings. It is necessary, however, to remember that at first a person may need protective mechanisms, as they help him to stand on his feet after the blow received, not to collapse under a flurry of emotions. Therefore, it is very important that the psychologist be sensitive to the human condition, realize the meaning and strength of his actions and be able to subtly feel the moment when the grieving person is psychologically ready to face the loss and the whole range of feelings associated with it.
A wonderful description of psychologically competent behavior with a person who has just suffered a loss is given by N. S. Leskov in the novel “The Bypassed”.
Dolinsky still sat over the bed and stared motionlessly at Dora's dead head...
- Nestor Ignatich! Onuchin called him.
There was no answer. Onuchin repeated his call - the same thing, Dolinsky did not move.
Vera Sergeevna stood for several minutes and, without removing her right hand from her brother's elbow, laid her left firmly on Dolinsky's shoulder and, bending down to his head, said affectionately:
- Nestor Ignatich!
Dolinsky seemed to wake up, passed his hand over his forehead and looked at the guests.
- Hello! - Mademoiselle Onuchina told him again.
- Hello! he answered, and his left cheek again twisted into the same strange smile.
Vera Sergeevna took his hand and again shook it with an effort.
Let's pause for a moment in reading this episode and pay attention to the state of Dolinsky, who lost his beloved woman a few hours ago, and to the actions of Vera Sergeevna. Dolinsky is undoubtedly in a state of shock: he sits in a frozen pose, does not react to others, does not immediately respond to the words addressed to him. The same is evidenced by his “strange smile”, obviously inadequate to the situation and hiding underneath a lot of strong feelings that cannot be expressed. Vera Sergeevna, for her part, is trying to get him out of this state through gentle but persistent treatment and touches. However, let's go back to the text of the novel and see what she will do next.
“Vera Sergeevna put both her hands on Dolinsky’s shoulders and said:
- You're the only one left now!
“One,” Dolinsky replied in a barely audible voice, and, looking back at the dead Dora, smiled again.
“Your loss is terrible,” continued Vera Sergeevna, without taking her eyes off him.
“Terrible,” Dolinsky answered indifferently.
Onuchin pulled his sister by the sleeve and made a stern grimace. Vera Sergeevna looked round at her brother, and answering him with an impatient movement of her eyebrows, turned again to Dolinsky, who stood before her in petrified calm.
Was she in a lot of pain?
- And so young!
Dolinsky was silent and carefully wiped his left hand with his right hand.
Dolinsky looked back at Dora and dropped it in a whisper:
- How she loved you! .. God, what a loss! Dolinsky seemed to stagger on his feet.
- And for what such misfortune!
- For what! For… for what! groaned Dolinsky, and falling into Vera Sergeevna's knees, he sobbed like a child who has been punished without guilt as an example to others.
“Come on, Nestor Ignatitch,” Kirill Sergeevich began, but his sister again stopped his compassionate impulse and gave freedom to crying to Dolinsky, who hugged her knees in despair.
Little by little he burst out crying and, leaning on a chair, looked once more at the dead woman and said sadly:
The actions of Vera Sergeevna surprise, if I may say so, with their "professionalism", sensitivity and at the same time confidence. We see that while maintaining tactile contact with Dolinsky, she began by stating the fact of the loss, then tried to turn to the feelings of the interlocutor, struck by the loss. However, it was not possible to immediately wake them up - he was still in a state of shock - "petrified calmness." Then Vera Sergeevna began to turn to emotionally significant moments of loss, as if touching one or another pain point. At the same time, she, in fact, empathically reflected, voiced what must have been going on inside Dolinsky, and thereby paved the way for his experiences that found no way out. This elegant and very effective approach can be purposefully used in the psychological practice of working with grief. And in the above episode, he led to a natural healing result - Dolinsky expressed his grief, his anger and resentment (“For what!”), Mourned the loss of his beloved, and in the end came, if not to acceptance, then at least to the actual recognition of death Dora ("It's over").
This scene is also interesting in that it demonstrates two contrasting ways of behaving with the mourner. One of them is the already considered approach of Vera Sergeevna, the other, opposite to it and very common, is the way of behavior of her brother Onuchin. The latter tried to keep his sister first, then Dolinsky. By his actions, he shows us how not to behave with a grieving person, namely: to hush up the misfortune that has happened and prevent a person from mourning the deceased, expressing his grief.
In contrast, Vera Sergeevna is an example of consistently competent interaction with the bereaved. After she helped Dolinsky recognize and mourn the loss, she undertook to help prepare the deceased for burial (provided practical assistance), and Dolinsky, along with her brother, offered to go send a dispatch to relatives. There is also a subtle sense of the situation here: firstly, it protects him from excessive fixation on the deceased, secondly, it does not leave him alone, thirdly, it maintains his connection with reality through a practical assignment, thanks to which it prevents slipping into the previous state and reinforces the positive dynamics of experiencing loss.
This example of communication with a person in the period immediately after the death of his loved one is undoubtedly very instructive. At the same time, the bereaved are not always ready to let grief into themselves so quickly. Therefore, it can be important that not only a psychologist, but also family members and friends are involved in helping the grieving. And even if they cannot behave as competently and gracefully as in the episode under consideration, their very silent presence and readiness for a breakthrough of grief can play a significant role.
2. Stage of anger and resentment. At this phase of experiencing loss, the psychologist may face different tasks, the most common of them are the following two:
Help the person to understand that the negative feelings they experience directed at others are normal;
Help him express these feelings in an acceptable form, direct them in a constructive way.
Understanding that anger, indignation, irritation, resentment are quite natural and common emotions when experiencing loss is healing in itself and often brings some relief to a person. This awareness is essential, as it performs several positive functions:
Reducing anxiety about your condition. Among all the emotions experienced by bereaved people, it is strong anger and irritation that most often turn out to be unexpected, so that they can even raise doubts about their own mental health. Accordingly, the knowledge that many grieving people experience similar emotions helps to calm down a little.
Facilitating the recognition and expression of negative emotions. Many bereaved people try to suppress their anger and resentment, because they are not ready for their appearance and consider them reprehensible. Accordingly, if they learn that these emotional experiences are almost natural, then it is easier for them to recognize them in themselves and express them.
Prevention of guilt. Sometimes it happens that a person who has suffered a loss, having barely realized his anger (often unreasonable) at other people, and even more so at the deceased, begins to reproach himself for it. If this anger is also poured out on others, then after this the feeling of guilt for the unpleasant experiences delivered to other people increases even more. In this case, recognizing the normality of anger and resentment as a reaction to loss helps to treat them with understanding, and therefore better control.
In order to help a person develop an adequate perception of his emotions, a psychologist, firstly, needs to be tolerant of them himself, as something taken for granted, and secondly, he can inform a person that such feelings are quite normal. a reaction to loss, observed in many people who have lost their loved ones.
Next comes the task of expressing anger and resentment. “With the anger of the bereaved,” notes I. O. Vagin, “it must be remembered that if anger remains inside a person, it“ feeds ”depression. Therefore, you should help her “pour out” out. In the psychologist's office, this can be done in a relatively free form, it is only important to treat the pouring emotional experiences with acceptance. In other situations, it is necessary to help a person learn to manage his anger, not to let him discharge at everyone who comes to hand, but to direct him in a constructive direction: physical activity (sports and work), diary entries, etc. In everyday communication with people - relatives, friends, colleagues and just random strangers - it is desirable to control the emotions directed against them, and if they are expressed, then in an adequate form that allows people to correctly perceive them: as a manifestation of grief, and not as an attack against them.
It is also important for the specialist to keep in mind that anger is usually the result of helplessness associated with a person's inability to die. Therefore, another direction of helping a person experiencing a loss can be work with his attitude to death as a given of earthly existence, often beyond control. It may also be appropriate to discuss the attitude towards one's mortality, although here everything is decided by the degree of relevance of these issues for a person: whether he responds to them or not.
3. Stage of guilt and obsessions. Since guilt is almost universal among grieving people and is often a very persistent and painful experience, it becomes a particularly common subject of psychological help in grief. Let us outline the strategic line of action of a psychologist when working with the problem of guilt towards the deceased.
The first step that makes sense to take is just to talk to a person about this feeling, to give him the opportunity to talk about his experiences, to express them. This alone (with the empathic accepting participation of a psychologist) may be enough for everything to be more or less in order in a person’s soul and it becomes somewhat easier for him. You can also talk about the circumstances of the death of a loved one and the behavior of the client at the time so that he can be convinced that he exaggerates his real opportunities to influence what happened. If the feeling of guilt is clearly unfounded, the psychologist can try to convince the person that, on the one hand, he did not contribute in any way to the death of his loved one, on the other hand, he did everything possible to prevent it. As for the theoretically possible options for preventing loss, it requires, firstly, an awareness of the limitations of human capabilities, in particular, the inability to fully foresee the future, and secondly, the acceptance of one’s own imperfection, like any other representative of the human race.
The next, second step (if the feeling of guilt turned out to be persistent) is to decide what the client would like to do with his guilt. As practice shows, the initial request often sounds straightforward: get rid of guilt. And here comes the subtle point. If the psychologist immediately “rushes” to fulfill the wish of the bereaved, trying to remove the burden of guilt from him, he may encounter an unexpected difficulty: despite the wish expressed aloud, the client seems to resist its fulfillment or the guilt seems to not want to part with his master. We will find an explanation for this if we remember that guilt is different and not every feeling of guilt needs to be removed, especially since it does not always lend itself to this.
Therefore, the third step to be taken is to find out whether the guilt is neurotic or existential. The first diagnostic criterion for neurotic guilt is the discrepancy between the severity of the experiences and the actual magnitude of the “offences”. And sometimes these “misconducts” can turn out to be imaginary at all. The second criterion is the presence in the client's social environment of some external source of accusation, in relation to which he most likely experiences any negative emotions, for example, indignation or resentment. The third criterion is that the guilt does not become one's own, but turns out to be a "foreign body", from which he longs to get rid of with all his heart. To clarify this, you can use the following method. The psychologist asks a person to imagine a fantastic situation: someone infinitely powerful offers to immediately, right now, completely rid him of guilt - whether he agrees to it or not. It is assumed that if the client answers "yes", then his guilt is neurotic, if he answers "no", then his guilt is existential.
The fourth step and further actions depend on what kind of guilt, as it turned out, the bereaved is experiencing. In the case of neurotic guilt that is not genuine and not one's own, the task is to identify its source, help to rethink the situation, develop a more mature attitude and, thus, get rid of the original feeling. In the case of existential guilt, which arises as a consequence of irreparable mistakes and, in principle, cannot be eliminated, the task is to help to realize the significance of guilt (if a person does not want to part with it, it means that he needs it for some reason), to extract from it a positive life meaning and learn to live with it.
As examples of positive meanings that can be extracted from feelings of guilt, we note the options encountered in practice:
Guilt as a life lesson: the realization that you need to give people goodness and love in time - while they are alive, while you yourself are alive, while there is such an opportunity;
Guilt as a payment for a mistake: the mental anguish experienced by a person who repents of past actions acquires the meaning of redemption;
Guilt as evidence of morality: a person perceives guilt as the voice of conscience and comes to the conclusion that this feeling is absolutely normal, and vice versa, it would be abnormal (immoral) if he did not experience it.
It is important not only to discover a certain positive meaning of guilt, it is also important to realize this meaning or, at least, to direct guilt in a positive direction, to transform it into an incentive for activity. Two options are possible here, depending on the level of existential guilt.
That which is associated with guilt cannot be corrected. Then it remains only to accept. However, at the same time, the opportunity remains to do something useful for other people, to engage in charitable activities. At the same time, it is important that a person realizes that his current activity is not a retribution to the deceased, but is aimed at helping other people and, accordingly, should be guided by their needs in order to be adequate and really useful. In addition, certain actions can be performed for the deceased himself (or rather, in memory of him and out of love and respect for him) (for example, to complete the work he started). Even if they are in no way connected with the subject of guilt, nevertheless, their fulfillment can bring some consolation to a person.
Something that causes a feeling of guilt, albeit belatedly (already after the death of a loved one), but still can be corrected or implemented at least partially (for example, the request of the deceased to make peace with relatives). Then a person has the opportunity to actually do something that can retroactively justify him to some extent in the eyes of the deceased (before his memory). Moreover, efforts can be directed both to the fulfillment of the requests of the deceased in his lifetime, and to the execution of his will.
The fifth step ended up with us, according to the logic of the presentation, at the end. However, it can be done earlier, since asking for forgiveness is always on time, if there is anything for it. The ultimate goal of this final step is to say goodbye to the deceased. If a person realizes that he is really guilty before him, then it is important not only to admit guilt and extract a positive meaning from it, but also to ask for forgiveness from the deceased. This can be done in a different form: mentally, in writing, or using the “empty chair” technique. In the latter version, it is very important for the client to be able to see himself and his relationship with the deceased through the eyes of the latter. From his position, the reason that causes a feeling of guilt can be evaluated in a completely different way and, perhaps, even be perceived as insignificant. At the same time, a person can suddenly clearly feel that for everything that he is really guilty of, the deceased "surely forgives" him. This feeling reconciles the living with the dead and brings peace to the former.
And yet, sometimes, if guilt is too inadequate and hypertrophied, acknowledging it before the deceased does not lead to spiritual reconciliation with him or to a reassessment of the offense, and self-accusation sometimes turns into a real one (self-flagellation. As a rule, this state of affairs is facilitated by the idealization of the deceased and “denigration "of himself, exaggeration of his shortcomings. In this case, it is necessary to restore an adequate perception of the personality of the deceased and his own personality. It is usually especially difficult to see and recognize the shortcomings of the deceased. Therefore, the first task is to help the mourner come to terms with his weaknesses, learn to see in himself strengths Only then is it possible to recreate a realistic image of the deceased.This can be facilitated by talking about the personality of the deceased in all its complexity, about the combined advantages and disadvantages in it.
Thus, starting with a request to his loved one for forgiveness, a person comes to forgive him himself. It is noteworthy that the forgiveness of the deceased for possible insults inflicted on him can also, to some extent, relieve the grieving from excessive feelings of guilt, because if he continues to be offended for something at the deceased in the depths of his soul, experience negative feelings towards him. emotions, then he can blame himself for it. Moreover, resentment towards the deceased and his idealization, logically contradicting each other, can actually coexist at different levels of consciousness. Thus, having come to terms with his own imperfection and asking for forgiveness for his own mistakes, as well as accepting the weaknesses of the deceased and forgiving them to him, a person reconciles with his loved one and at the same time gets rid of the double burden of guilt.
Reconciliation with a loved one is very important, because it allows you to take a decisive step towards the end of earthly relationships with him. Feelings of guilt indicate that there is something unfinished in the relationship with the deceased. However, according to the apt remark of R. Moody, “in fact, everything unfinished has ended. You just don't like that ending." That is why it is important to reconcile and accept everything as it is, so that you can live on.
In addition to the general picture of working with guilt, let's add a few touches concerning particular situations and individual cases of guilt, as well as obsessive fantasies about a possible "salvation" of the deceased. Many of these situations are transient, and therefore do not require special intervention. So, it is not at all necessary to deal with repeated "if" in the client. Sometimes you can even get involved in his game, and then he himself will see the unrealism of his assumptions. At the same time, since one of the sources of guilt and the obsessive phenomena associated with it can be a person's overestimation of his ability to control the circumstances of life and death, in some cases it is appropriate to work with the attitude towards death in general. With regard specifically to the guilt of the survivor, the guilt of relief or joy, in addition to everything that has been said in these cases, elements of an unobtrusive “Socratic dialogue” (maieutics) can be used. It is also important to inform a person about the absolute normality of these experiences and, relatively speaking, to give him “permission” to continue a full life and positive emotions.
4. Stage of suffering and depression. At this stage, the actual suffering from the loss, from the resulting emptiness, comes to the fore. The division of this stage and the previous one, as we remember, is very conditional. Just as at the previous stage, along with guilt, suffering and elements of depression are certainly present, so at this stage, against the background of dominant suffering and depression, a feeling of guilt can persist, especially if it is real, existential. Nevertheless, let's talk about psychological help specifically for a person suffering from a loss and experiencing depression.
The main source of pain for the grieving is the absence of a loved one nearby. Loss leaves a big wound in the soul, and it takes time for it to heal. Can a psychologist somehow influence this healing process: speed it up or make it easier? Essentially, I think not; probably only to some extent - by walking with the mourner some part of this path, substituting a hand for support. This joint path can be as follows: to remember a past life when the now deceased was nearby, to revive the events associated with him, both difficult and pleasant, to experience feelings related to him, both positive and negative. It is also important to identify and mourn the secondary loss that the death of a loved one entails. It is equally important to thank him for all the good that he did, for all the light that is connected with him.
Co-presence with the grieving person and a conversation about his experiences (listen, give the opportunity to cry) are again of great importance. At the same time, in everyday life, the role of these aspects of communication with the bereaved becomes less active at this stage. As E. M. Cherepanova notes, “here you can and should give a person, if he wants it, to be alone.” It is also desirable to involve him in household chores and socially useful activities. The actions of a psychologist or people around him in this direction should be unobtrusive, and the mode of life of the grieving person should be gentle. If the person experiencing the loss is a believer, then during the period of suffering and depression, spiritual support from the church can become especially valuable for him.
The main goal of the psychologist's work at this stage is to help in accepting the loss. In order for this acceptance to come about, it may be important that the mourner first accepts his or her grief over the loss. It will probably be better for him if he is imbued with the realization that "pain is the price we pay for having a loved one." Then he will be able to relate to the pain he experiences as a natural reaction to the loss, to understand that it would be strange if it were not there.
Suffering, including that caused by the death of a loved one, can be not only accepted, but also endowed with an important personal meaning (which in itself has a healing effect). The world-famous founder of logotherapy, Viktor Frankl, is convinced of this. And this is not the result of theoretical reflections, but the knowledge he personally suffered and tested by practice. Explaining his thought, Frankl tells an incident connected precisely with grief. “Once an elderly medical practitioner consulted me about severe depression. He couldn't get over the loss of his wife, who died two years ago and whom he loved more than anything. But how could I help him? What should have been said to him? I refused any conversation and instead asked him a question: “Tell me, doctor, what would happen if you died first and your wife outlived you?” “Oh! - he said, - for her it would be terrible; how much she would suffer!” To which I said: “See, doctor, what suffering it would cost her, and it would be you who would be the cause of this suffering; but now you have to pay the price by staying alive and mourning her.” He didn't say another word, just shook my hand and quietly left my office." Suffering somehow ceases to be suffering after it acquires a meaning, such as, for example, the meaning of sacrifice. Thus, another task of the psychologist becomes helping the grieving person to discover the meaning of suffering.
We say that the pain of loss must be accepted, but at the same time, only pain that is natural and to the extent that it is inevitable needs to be accepted. If the mourner holds back suffering as proof of his love for the deceased, then it turns into self-torture. In this case, it is required to reveal its psychological roots (feelings of guilt, irrational beliefs, cultural stereotypes, social expectations, etc.) and try to correct them. In addition, it is important to come to an understanding that in order to continue to love a person, it is not at all necessary to suffer greatly, you can do it in a different way, you just need to find ways to express your love.
To switch a person from endless walking in a circle of sorrowful experiences and transferring the center of gravity from the inside (from obsession with loss) to the outside (into reality), E. M. Cherepanova recommends using the method of forming a sense of real guilt. Its essence is to reproach a person for his "selfishness" - after all, he is too busy with his experiences and does not care about the people around who need his help. It is assumed that such words will contribute to the completion of the work of grief, and the person will not only not be offended, but will even feel gratitude and experience relief.
A similar effect (return to reality) can sometimes have an appeal to the supposed opinion of the deceased about the state of the mourner. There are two options here:
Presenting this opinion in a ready-made form: “He probably wouldn’t like it that you would kill yourself like that, abandon everything.” This option is more suitable for everyday communication with the bereaved.
Discussion with a person, how the deceased would react, what he would feel, what he would like to say, looking at his suffering. To enhance the effect, the “empty chair” technique can be used. This option is applicable, first of all, for professional psychological assistance in grief.
The psychologist should also remember that, according to research. the level of depression is positively correlated with feelings about mortality. Therefore, at this stage, as at others, the subject of discussion may be the attitude of a person to his own death.
5. Stage of acceptance and reorganization. When a person has managed to more or less accept the death of a loved one, work with the experience of loss itself (provided that the previous stages have been successfully passed) recedes into second place. It contributes to the final recognition of the completeness of the relationship with the deceased. A person comes to such completeness when he is able to say goodbye to his loved one, carefully put in memory everything valuable that is connected with him, and find a new place for him in the soul.
The main task of psychological assistance moves to another plane. Now it mainly boils down to helping a person rebuild his life, to enter a new stage of life. To do this, as a rule, you have to work in different directions:
To streamline the world where there is no longer a dead person, to find ways to adapt to a new reality;
Rebuild the system of relationships with people to the extent necessary;
Reconsider life priorities, thinking about a variety of areas of life and identifying the most important meanings;
Determine long-term life goals, make plans for the future.
Movement in the first direction may start from the theme of secondary losses. A possible way to discover them is to discuss the diverse changes that have occurred in a person's life after the death of a loved one. Internal emotional changes, namely the difficult experiences associated with the loss, are obvious. What else has changed - in life, in the ways of interacting with the outside world? As a rule, it is easier to see and recognize negative changes: something is irretrievably lost, something is now missing. All this is an occasion to thank the deceased for what he gave. Perhaps the resulting lack of something can be somehow filled, of course, not in the way it was before, but in some new way. Appropriate resources must be found for this, and then the first step towards the reorganization of life will already be taken. As R. Moody and D. Arcangel write: “Life balance is maintained when our physical, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual needs are met. … Losses affect all five aspects of our being; however, most people overlook one or two of them. One of the goals of proper adaptation is to maintain the balance of our lives.
At the same time, in addition to undoubted losses and negative consequences, many losses also bring something positive to people's lives, turn out to be an impetus for the birth of something new and important (see, for example, in the previous section, the story of Moody and co-author about the possibility of spiritual growth after loss). In the early stages of experiencing the death of a loved one, it is usually not recommended to start talking about its positive consequences or meanings, as this is likely to meet with resistance from the client. However, in the later stages, when there are hints of acceptance of the loss and there is a corresponding readiness on the part of the client, discussion of these difficult moments becomes already possible. It contributes to a more subtle perception of the loss that has occurred and the discovery of new life meanings.
The actions of the psychologist, who works with the client in other directions - on understanding his life and increasing its authenticity - in essence resemble the work of an existential analyst and logotherapist. A necessary condition for success is the slowness, naturalness of the process and careful attitude to the emotional movements of the client.
At any stage of experiencing loss, rituals and rituals perform an important supporting and facilitating function in relation to the grief of a person who has lost his loved one. Therefore, the psychologist should support the client's desire to participate in them, or, alternatively, recommend it himself, if this proposal is consistent with the mood of the person. Many domestic and foreign authors speak about the importance of rituals, and scientific studies testify to the same. R. Kociunas speaks on this topic as follows: “Rituals are very important in mourning. The mourner needs them like air and water. It is psychologically essential to have a public and sanctioned way of expressing complex and deep feelings of grief. Rituals are necessary for the living, not for the dead, and they cannot be reduced to the point of losing their purpose.
Modern society deprives itself a lot, moving away from centuries-old cultural traditions, from rituals associated with mourning and comforting the mourners. F. Aries writes about it this way: “At the end of the 19th or the beginning of the 20th century. these codes, these rituals have disappeared. Therefore, feelings that go beyond the ordinary either do not find expression for themselves and are restrained, or splash out with unrestrained and unbearable force, since there is nothing more that could channel these violent feelings.
Note that rituals are needed both for the one who is experiencing the loss, and for the one who is next to him. They help the first to express their grief and thereby express their feelings, the second - they help to communicate with the grieving, to find an adequate approach to him. Deprived of rituals, people sometimes simply do not know how to behave with a person who has suffered the death of a loved one. And they do not find anything better than to move away from him, to avoid a problematic topic. As a result, everyone suffers: the grieving one suffers from loneliness, which intensifies an already difficult state of mind, those around him suffer from discomfort and, possibly, also from guilt.
Of fundamental importance for the bereaved is the main ritual associated with death - the funeral of the deceased. This is often discussed in the specialized literature. “The funeral ceremony provides people with an opportunity to express their feelings about how the life of the deceased has affected them, to mourn what they have lost, to realize what the most precious memory will remain with them, and to receive support. This ritual is the cornerstone of the forthcoming mourning. How important it is for the relatives of the deceased to participate in his funeral, so fraught with adverse psychological consequences is the absence of them. On this occasion, E. M. Cherepanova notes: “When a person is not present at a funeral for various reasons, he may experience pathological grief, and then, in order to alleviate his suffering, it is recommended to somehow reproduce the funeral and farewell procedure.”
Many rituals, historically developing in the church environment and in line with the beliefs of our ancestors, have a religious meaning. At the same time, this means of external expression of grief is also available to people of an atheistic worldview. They can come up with their own rituals, as foreign experts suggest. Moreover, these "inventions" do not have to be public at all, the main thing is that they make sense.
However, despite the theoretical possibility of individual rituals among atheists, religious people, on average, experience losses much easier. On the one hand, church rituals help them in this, on the other hand, they find great support in religious beliefs. The results of a foreign study showed that “for people who attend religious services and are devout believers, the experience of loss is less difficult compared to those who shy away from visiting temples and do not adhere to spiritual faith. Between these two categories there is an intermediate group, consisting of those who attend church without being convinced of their true faith, as well as those who believe sincerely, but do not go to church.
The idea was raised above that rituals are needed by the living, and not by the dead. If we are talking about those living who are far from religion, then, undoubtedly, this is so. Yes, and religious people, they are also, of course, needed. Church traditions of funeral services and prayerful commemoration of the dead help to say goodbye to the dead, live through grief, feel support and community with other people and God. At the same time, for a person who believes in the continuation of existence after earthly death and in the possibility of a spiritual connection between the living and the dead, rituals acquire another very significant meaning - the opportunity to do something useful for a loved one who has ended his earthly life. The Orthodox tradition gives a person the opportunity to do for the deceased what he can no longer do for himself - to help him cleanse his sins. Bishop Hermogenes names three means by which the living can positively influence the afterlife of the dead:
“First, prayer for them, combined with faith. ... Prayers performed for the dead benefit them, although they do not atone for all crimes.
The second way to help the dead is to give them alms for the repose, in various donations for the temples of God.
Finally, the third, most important and powerful means to alleviate the fate of the departed is to perform a bloodless Sacrifice for the repose of them.
Thus, following church traditions, the believer not only finds in them a way to express his feelings, but, which is very important, also gets the opportunity to do something useful for the deceased, and in that for himself to find additional comfort.
Let us pay special attention to the meaning of the prayers of the living for the dead. Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh reveals their deep meaning. “All prayers for the deceased are precisely a testimony before God that this person did not live in vain. No matter how sinful and weak this person was, he left a memory full of love: everything else will decay, and love will survive everything. This idea has been repeatedly expressed by various authors, in particular I. Yalom (1980).
. That is, a prayer for the deceased is an expression of love for him and a confirmation of his value. But Vladyka Anthony goes further and says that we can testify not only by prayer, but also by our very lives, that the deceased did not live in vain, embodying in his life everything that was significant, high, genuine in him. “Everyone who lives leaves an example: an example of how to live, or an example of an unworthy life. And we must learn from every living or dead person; bad - to avoid, good - to follow. And everyone who knew the deceased should think deeply about what seal he left with his life on his own life, what seed was sown; and must bear fruit” (ibid.). Here we find the deep Christian meaning of the reorganization of life after a loss: not to start a new life, freed from everything connected with the deceased, and not to remake our life in his manner, but to take valuable seeds from the life of our loved one, sow them on the soil of our life and nurture them in your own way.
In conclusion of the chapter, we emphasize that not only rituals, but also religion in general, play an important role in the experience of grief. According to numerous foreign studies, religious people are less afraid of death, they are more accepting of it. Therefore, the principle of relying on religiosity can be added to the above general principles of psychological assistance in grief, which calls on the psychologist, regardless of his attitude to matters of faith, to support the client’s religious aspirations (when they eat). Faith in God and in the continuation of life after death, of course, does not eliminate grief, but brings a certain consolation. Saint Theophan the Recluse began one of the funeral services for the deceased with the words: “We will cry - a loved one has left us. But we will weep as believers,” that is, with faith in eternal life, and also that the deceased can inherit it, and that someday we will be reunited with him. It is this (with faith) mourning for the dead that helps to overcome grief more easily and quickly, illuminates it with the light of hope.
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There are many researchers of the "soul" - this most mysterious and incomprehensible phenomenon. Both religion and science often argue about the origin of life, but they agree on the existence of a soul in humans. It is difficult to deny it, but it is also not possible to fully explore it either. The soul definitely exists. But, as it turned out, not everyone. Believers say about people without a soul: “I sold my soul to the devil”, “I ruined my soul”, “drank my soul away”. Esotericists and psychologists are also inclined to argue that a person can lose his soul. But only partially. They name several signs by which one can determine that the soul is “lost”, exhausted, or a person has lost contact with it.
Psychology of "loss" of the soul
In psychology, relatively speaking, the soul refers to the unconscious, intuition, feelings. This is a part of the psyche (translated from the Greek psyche - soul, spirit, consciousness). Is a person possible without it? Obviously not. Therefore, from the point of view of psychologists, the soul cannot leave a person, or “not be born” in him at all. But dissociation can occur - a psychological defense mechanism provoked by strong emotions, internal contradictions. With its help, nature protects the body from psychological trauma and blocks the perception of traumatic situations. As a result, a person begins to treat the current reality as not connected with him, and with his life. It seems to be divided into parts, hiding behind masks or merging with them.
Carl Jung suggested that these psychological personalities of a person are composed of "complexes". They are “an emotionally colored set of ideas, motives and attitudes that have a significant impact on the development and functioning of the psyche, personality and human behavior”, and are either formed in the unconscious or forced out there and still remain unconscious. When a person loses control over one of these "complexes", conscious energy weakens. Thus, a psychological imbalance is created and the natural integrity of a person is destroyed. Psychologists refer to this as "multiple personality disorder" and in tribal cultures it would be called soul loss.
Geralt/Pixabay There are complex and mild forms of "split personality". With complex cases, everything is clear - a person is called mentally ill and sent to treat (return his soul) to psychiatric hospitals. In the case of a partial "loss" of the soul (and this includes post-traumatic stress, depression, alcoholism, drug addiction and other addictions), people themselves try to heal spiritual wounds and gain integrity. They turn to God, to healers, to psychologists. Church, charity, meditation, creativity, love, self-sacrifice are means of healing the soul. Not always, but often this helps a person who feels that he has “lost” his soul, has broken the harmony between the world and himself.
Signs of a person "without a soul"
Unfortunately, not everyone realizes that they have lost touch with their own soul. But not always soulless is only the person in whom the “devil” has moved in (murderer, rapist, thief, liar, hypocrite, etc.). “Empty” can be anyone, regardless of the level of education, upbringing or conscience. You can recognize a person "without a soul" by the following signs:
Five defining signs will help you figure out who to stay away from. If there is someone in your environment who has at least two of these traits, try to communicate with such a character as neutrally as possible so as not to become his victim.
